The soft mud technology is one of the oldest technologies of making bricks. By adding water to the clay the body becomes soft and by throwing/pressing the clay clot into a mould box a brick is formed.

By rolling the clot in dry sand before throwing/pressing and/or by sanding the mouldbox the brick easily releases.

Till the mid of the nineteenth century soft mud bricks where always hand made. Several companies started to mechanise this shaping method. A variety of different machines came on the market. Most of these machines where only mechanising the filling of the mouldbox by pressing the clay. All other steps like  sanding and de-moulding were still done manually. But slowly over the years all other steps where mechanised. 

In the second half of the twenty century the throwing of a clot was also done mechanically. Companies like Aberson, Hubert and De Boer came on the market with their own simulated handmoulding systems.

The capacity of a modern installation can go up to 40,000 bricks per hour and there is no difference in the look of these bricks compared to real handmoulded bricks.

Due to the shaping method a soft mud bricks some of the technical aspects of these soft mud brick are differently from bricks which have been made with another shaping method like for instance extrusion technology or dry pressing technology.